Death by BlackBerry crisis averted

By Asher Moses

UpdatedMarch 1, 2011 — 2.02pmfirst published at 10.08am

With threats of cyber war on the horizon, one would think the Department of Defence has more pressing security concerns than whether politicians keep the flashing blue light on the top of their BlackBerry handsets on or off.

But the secretive Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) was so concerned that it instituted a recommendation requiring politicians to enable the flashing light on their taxpayer-funded mobiles.

The new "Blackberry Bold 9700" handset.

It has now backflipped on the rule after senators rebelled, arguing it could cause serious accidents.

The seemingly innocuous BlackBerry light, which flashes blue when paired with a Bluetooth device such as a car hands-free kit, caused such consternation that Senator Stephen Parry used a Senate estimates hearing to rail against the Defence order to leave the light on and warned it was "exceptionally dangerous at night".

Advertisement

"The strobe effect of this light impairs driving, especially out of city environs. I do a number of kilometres after hours in the dark and it has a terrible effect," Senator Parry said.

"It impairs driving, especially now - and I know Senator [Scott] Ryan has had an experience - when the phones are mounted higher up on cradles in motor vehicles."

Senator Parry urged David Kenny, deputy secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services, to look at repealing the rule "as a matter of urgency, because we do not want to come back to the next estimates and find that a senator or member has had an accident because of a stupid little requirement".

Another senator, who did not wish to be named, confirmed that several colleagues had expressed concern about the rule and their inability to switch the light off. Normal users can turn it off in the settings menu but not politicians, whose devices are tightly controlled.

Defence acted quickly, telling this website yesterday that "this recommendation [to leave the light on] has now been withdrawn".

It would not say why this rule was in place to begin with other than that "the light can be used to make users aware that their Bluetooth connection is active".

The former team leader of investigations at the Australian High Tech Crime Centre, Nigel Phair, who is now working as a private consultant, said "there is good reason to have this light on so the owner is aware their device is 'discoverable'". He referred to "Bluetooth sniffing" devices that seek out phones with vulnerabilities.

"But this counts for nothing if the handset user [the senator/s] have never been given any advice on device security, including the dangers of Bluetooth, wireless, email scams, etc," Mr Phair said.

However, security consultant Chris Gatford, of Hacklabs, said the rule was most likely a hangover from when Bluetooth-based attacks were a major threat to mobile devices. Defence's rule meant politicians would know when their Bluetooth was switched on and sowhen they may be vulnerable to attack.

"Bluetooth attacks have historically been used for initiating calls, listening to conversations and stealing data from phones," Mr Gatford said.

But while the rule may have been relevant for high profile executives and politicians four or five years ago, Mr Gatford said Bluetooth had since been tightened up and he would be surprised if there were any phones still around that were vulnerable to these kinds of attacks.

During a visit to China in 2008, former prime minister Kevin Rudd and his staff were reportedly subjected to several hack attempts on their mobiles and laptop computers.

Politicians and prominent business people, including mining industry executives, now undertake immense security measures when travelling overseas, such as fitting out their devices with special security devices designed to encrypt data and safeguard them against intrusions.